Cannibalism as a metaphor for queerness in its most all-embracing form is the basis for Bones and All, Luca Guadagnino’s love-fused exploration of outsider angst set against a detail-perfect 1980s America. Based on Camille De Angelis’ 2015 young adult novel, the script by regular collaborator David Kajganich (Suspiria, A Bigger Splash) makes no bones about how it wants to be read, realized by Guadagnino into a visually rich, deceptively straightforward story whose horror elements, while hardly underplayed, are conceived as instinctive and inescapable rather than something to shock. The director’s uncanny sensitivity to his surroundings, whether outdoor or interior spaces, is once again on full display and it’s something of surprise to grasp that this is his first film shot in the States given how thoroughly he knows the psychological impact of each location. With well-entrenched roots going back to They Live By Night and any number of recent “art house” horror films using the genre to toy with concepts of transgression and belonging, Bones and All will be avidly consumed by international audiences, not least thanks to the charismatic coupling of hot newcomer Taylor Russell (Waves) and Timothée Chalamet.
Some directors seem trapped in teenage stories because they either think they’re “down” with the kids or haven’t come to grips with the fact that they’re no longer in that category themselves, but Guadagnino’s interest comes from a more generous place. In Call Me By Your Name and his series We Are Who We Are, the director displayed a depth of understanding for the tumult accompanying the shift to adulthood, brilliantly attuned to environment combined with the excitement and anxiety inherent in discovering how to express oneself. That’s the core of Bones and All, which uses the cannibal idea as a sign of inescapable difference and asks how we can lead fulfilling lives in a world that fears us. Buffy the Vampire Slayer did that too of course, but Bones doesn’t make the supernatural pretty or pop, even if Chalamet eats Lucky Charms and Entenmann’s cakes.
A shiny high school hallway in Virginia, a beat-up station wagon and a run-down tract house with cheap linoleum flooring and stained walls: these are the spaces that Maren (Russell) inhabits. She’d like to go to her classmate’s sleepover but her dad (André Holland) doesn’t let her out of the house at night. “Sneak out!” says Kim (Madeleine Hall), which is what Maren does, to the better side of town, where the girls play with nail polish and get really close until Kim’s finger becomes too tempting and Maren chomps it off. She flees back home and dad orders her to pack things up to leave: it’s been a while, but this isn’t the first time this has happened.
In a new state, Maren, 18, wakes up to find her father gone, some cash on the table, and a cassette tape. In the recording, which she periodically plays throughout the film, he tells her he just can’t cope anymore. It started when she was three and ate the babysitter’s face off; since then the instances have been infrequent, but he just doesn’t know how to help her, saying “I gotta leave you to figure it out for yourself, like your mother did.” Alongside the tape is her birth certificate, revealing her mother’s name and birthplace for the first time: Janelle Kerns from Bagley, Minnesota.
Believing her mother can shed light on who and what she is, Maren gets a Greyhound bus as far as she can afford. During a night stop, alone and vulnerable, she’s approached by a peculiar older man named Sully (Mark Rylance): “when was the last time you fed?” he asks, telling her he smelled her half a mile away. We’re alike, he says, and as he’s the first person she’s ever met who also needs to feast on human flesh, she’s hoping he can explain how she’s supposed to cope with this difference. Sully is creepy and Maren is wary that his interest could be malignant – while she’s a cannibal, she’s also an 18-year-old girl – but he has a code, and when he brings her to a house where an elderly woman is lying on the floor following a stroke, still breathing, the two wait for the moment of death and then pounce like animals, on all fours, consumed by a hunger they can’t control.
Though grateful for the mentoring, Maren is also mistrustful and she runs out the next day, back on a bus to Ohio where she sees Lee (Chalamet) at a convenience store challenging a foul-mouthed redneck who he then meets out back; when he returns, he’s coated in blood and Maren realizes he too has these urges. With his dyed-red locks, tattooed hand and whippet thinness, Lee projects contradictory signals of fatalism and vulnerability; Maren trusts him, and they drive off in his pick-up to see his sister in Kentucky, promising after to then go to Minnesota. The film then becomes a road trip and like the best movies of this genre it’s more about discovering the spaghetti junctions inside rather than the ones on a map, and finding how those junctions can link up and make us feel we’re not alone.
It’s a revelation for Maren to discover that she’s not alone after all, and others – good people – have the same needs that come from so deep inside it’s part of one’s nature. This is the core of Bones and All, that process of discovering a fellow soul and recognizing that your difference doesn’t make you better or worse than others; it makes you human. There are tense moments in the film in which malevolent currents ratchet up suspense, but they’re designed to show that individuality exists above difference, and true connections are all-encompassing, not based on cherry-picked similarities. Russell and Chalamet are beautifully paired, her hesitancy soothed by his wounded sensitivity, and just like Cathy O’Donnell and Farley Granger we want them not just to be together, but to keep the world at bay. Smaller character roles, filled by such luminaries as Rylance, Jessica Harper and Chloë Sevigny equally deliver fully-rounded characters.
Filming was done on Kodak 35mm, which comes so close at times to looking like something made in the 1980s that it becomes easy to get lost in the period, helped immeasurably by Elliot Hostetter’s truly exceptional production design (there’s even a Chia Pet in one shot). D.o.p. Arseni Khachaturan uses establishing shots and a thorough feel for lighting that grounds these people in their locales and relishes Maren and Lee’s companionship so much that we feel empty when they’re briefly apart. Music too grounds the time and place, from Kiss to New Order, joined by additional tunes from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, whose final song “(You Made it Feel Like) Home” acts as a fitting close.
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Screenplay: David Kajganich, based on the novel by Camille De Angelis
Cast: Taylor Russell, Timothée Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg, André Holland, Chloë Sevigny,
David Gordon Green, Jessica Harper, Jake Horowitz, Mark Rylance, Madeleine Hall, Anna Cobb, Burgess Byrd
Producers: Luca Guadagnino, Theresa Park, Marco Morabito, David Kajganich, Francesco Melzi d’Eril, Lorenzo Mieli, Gabriele Moratti and Peter Spears, Timothée Chalamet
Executive producers: Giovanni Corrado, Raffaella Viscardi, Moreno Zani, Marco Colombo, Jonathan Montepare
Cinematography: Arseni Khachaturan
Production designer: Elliot Hostetter
Costume designer: Giulia Piersanti
Editing: Marco Costa
Music: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross
Sound: Davide Favargiotti, Michele Gualdrini
Production companies: Frenesy Film Company (Italy), Per Capita Productions (USA), in association with The Apartment Pictures (Italy), MeMo Films (Italy), 3 Marys Entertainment (Italy), Elafilm, Tenderstories.
World sales: MGM
Venue: Venice Film Festival (competition)
In English
130 minutes
